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ongsi of l^eaben 






COMPILED SF 
CHARLES CLARK PIERCE 



THE WEIMAR PRESS 

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 

1909 






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Copyright, 1909 
By C. C. Pierce 



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a letter 

My Dear Friend: 

ANEW and overwhelming experience has been thrust upon you. A 
loved one, whose life was linked to your very soul by ties more 
sacred and wonderful than any human language or symbol can express, 
and who walked with you in a sweet companionship, which strengthened, 
enriched and glorified all your existence, has listened to the call of the 
silent messenger and passed from your sight, leaving your heart more 
lonely and desolate than you had ever dared to think possible. Those 
dear eyes into which you once looked, now give no response to the eager 
questionings of your soul, and the hand which once clasped yours in 
tenderest love, now returns no answering pressure. 

Some strong one who stood by your side a noble protector, some 
gentle one, whose sweetness and tender love illumined the whole world 
and made it beautiful, some precious little one whose sweet baby fingers 
twined and wove themselves into the sacred inner cords of your heart, 
in a way which you once thought impossible, or it may be some aged 
one whose noble life of service has ever been a bulwark to the best that 
is within you, is with you now no more as in the days gone by. With 
whatever there is of the past, which you think you would change 
were you to live it over again, think how wonderfully precious will 
be its memory now for all the years to come. Here you have a 
treasure, of which nothing can ever rob you so long as your own 
life shall last. 

My friend, as one who has experienced and borne the burden of a 
great sorrow like this one which well nigh crushes you, permit me to say this 
in loving sympathy with you in your bereavement: Do not think of the loved 
one as dead. There is no death; "Christ hath abolished death and brought 
life and immortality to light." 

We change the house in which we live, the clothes which we wear, 
the country in which we reside, but we remain the same, save to go on 
to new and higher things in life and experience. This dear one for 
whom your aching heart now yearns so hungrily has only changed 
houses, passed from the body which could be afflicted with disease and 
dissolution, to the glorious body, which is to be free forever from these 



pains, ailments and imperfections. The fetters of the soul have been 
broken and thrown aside, and the prison doors flung wide open, that 
is all. Nothing else has changed, could have changed, only to get a 
better vision and possess a less hampered and circumscribed existence. 
The real life is going on, under sunnier skies, and amid more propitious 
conditions, than ever could have been possible here. Olir own love 
has not grown cold, but has the rather been deepened and intensified. 
So is it we must believe with the love of the dear one gone now from 
earthly sight, for you and for the other dear friends. The interest 
too, which this departed one had in you, and in all those things which 
were mutually dear to you both, has not necessarily passed away for- 
ever. Though some of the things which once worried and perplexed, 
as well as some things which were held to be of value, are doubtless 
viewed in a different light, still your loved one is no more lost out of 
your life, and out of the things which worthily claimed your mutual 
attention and love, than Christ was lost from the lives and activities 
of the world which he came to enlighten, when he passed from the 
physical sight of those who loved and followed him. 

And then, too, let not the tears of your sorrow blind your eyes 
to the great truth that this precious soul of your devotion is not im- 
prisoned in the tomb, to slumber through the long ages of the future, 
but is "alive with God, forevermore." Our loved ones are not far 
from us. They are with God, and God is here. They dwell not 
in some far off sphere, some country resplendent but remote, where 
they have lost all love and care and interest for those who still toil here 
in the old ways, but "ever near us tho' unseen, their dear immortal 
spirits tread." 

Let us then not be carried away wholly with our great grief. Think 
how wonderful God is, how much heavenly love and infinite beauty 
there must be in the nature of the One able to create souls so beautiful 
and possessed of so many noble qualities, as you knew in the one 
who has just been crowned with the supreme experience of this earthly 
existence. How precious is the thought that He permitted you to have 
this dear companionship, even for a little while. 

Whatever that heaven is to which the friends go when they pass 
from the ways of this mortal life, from this time on it will ever seem to you 
nearer and dearer, because of the loved ones there — how the dread 
which once hung over us, relative to our entering it, disappears, as we 



remember that this one so greatly loved has gone along that way just 
ahead of us. 

And finally dear friend, remember this. From that mighty sor- 
row which now so overwhelms you, something great and beautiful is 
sure to come into your life, something will enrich and strengthen your 
soul if you will permit it to do so. Just as when the night is darkest, 
the stars shine with the greater briUiancy, so out of the black pall of 
this new and seemingly terrible calamity, you will find if you continue 
to look upward, new stars of unknown beauty flashing in splendor, to 
comfort and guide you across the surging sea of life. Look up then, 
weary, lonely, sorrowing soul, and you will see them, and remember 
this, that back of them is God. Trust him, dear friend, the Source of 
all life, and nothing will ever separate you from the presence of your 
loved ones. 

In deepest sympathy, 

C. C. Pierce. 



a S^xaytv of ^ttbmtoion 

OLORD God of the whole earth, all souls are Thine, and our souls 
and our lives are wholly in thy hands. We have neither the 
power to resist, nor the right to gainsay thy will, but the heart, darkened 
and torn with its grief and fears, flees as a bird to its mountain, to Thee. 
In Thee alone from whom all trial and all blessing alike cometh, is 
there refuge for the soul. Teach us this day to say, "The Lord gave, 
and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." 

O our Heavenly Father, we cannot bear alone this great burden 
of life, and all that life involves. Tremblingly do we say, "Thy will 
be done." O give us the power to accept thy will without fear. Thou 
O God, didst create the affections which life so often sorely wounds and 
bereaves ; look, we pray Thee, pitifully upon the bleeding of these wounds. 
Be patient, we beseech Thee, with the weakness of a soul still ungrown 
and ignorant. Our hearts cling to the objects of their love. It is so 
hard to give them up and cling to Thee alone, nay rather to know that 
in Thee we have them still. They were so near, and Thou to our weak 
faith and imperfect vision, dost often seem so far. Thou hidest thyself, 
and thy greatness is so great above us, that we sometimes cannot feel 
thy sympathy as we should. 



Heavenly Father, we are dumb before Thee. Be merciful we 
pray. Manifest the exceeding tenderness of thy compassion. Be pleased 
to remember how frail we are. And measure not, O God, we beseech 
Thee, thy goodness by our deserts. We are thy creatures. Thou hast 
brought us into being. Spare, O Lord, the work of thy hand. Crush 
not utterly the souls that cry to Thee, out of their deep weakness and 
dependence. 

In the course of that life which Thou alone dost order, whatever it 
shall please Thee to take from us, or seem to take away, may it please 
Thee to leave with us the comfort of thy peace. Suffer not our souls 
to be bewildered utterly in trials, and permit us not to fall into the outer 
darkness of despair. 

Grant, O God, that ultimately the shadows of this troubled life 
may disappear through the rising of the sun of thy presence and thy 
love, and that with all those who have gone from our sight, we may 
meet in "that fair morn of morns" when the sorrows and tears and 
losses of this life shall be forgotten in the blessed companionships and 
compensations of the heavenly life. 

May the Spirit of all grace and power, which in the Garden and 
on the Cross did sustain Jesus of Nazareth, graciously be with us in 
this hour of unutterable darkness and grief, and for his sake, give us 
the victory, here and hereafter. 
^"""^ndofph & Co — ^*^^- ^^^^^^ ^- Brooks, D. D. 



1~\URING these lonely days of strain and suspense, I have wished 
'-^ so much that I could be a little help to you. I can tell you 
this at least, and pray that you may have from God and your friends 
and your own heart, strength enough to get through one day at a time. 
I do not see what else you can do but just live, now. You cannot 
understand or explain, but you know as well as I, that back of every- 
thing is God, and God is light — "we shall see;" and God is love — 
"we shall be satisfied." It may be a long while, but it will be worth 
waiting for. Trust Him — all ycu can — you will be glad you did. 

— Mallhie Babcock. 

to 



CftrisJtus; Cons^olator 

BESIDE tlie dead, I knelt for prayer. 
And felt a presence as I prayed. 
Lo! it was Jesus standing there. 
He smiled: "Be not afraid!" 

"Lord, thou hast conquered death, we know; 

Restore again to life," I said, 
"This one who died an hour ago." 

He smiled: "He is not dead!" 

"Asleep then, as thyself didst say, 
Yet thou canst lift the lids that keep 

His prisoned eyes from ours away!" 
He smiled: "He doth not sleep!" 

"Nay then, tho' haply he do wake. 
And look upon some fairer dawn, 

Restore him to our hearts that ache!" 
He smiled: "He is not gone!" 

"Alas! too well we know our loss, 
Nor hope again our joy to touch 

Until the stream of death we cross." 
He smiled: "There is no such!" 

"Yet our beloved seem so far, 

The while v/e yearn to feel them near. 

Albeit with thee we trust they are." 
He smiled: "And I am here!" 

"Dear Lord, how shall we know that they 
Still walk unseen with us and thee. 

Nor sleep, nor wander far away?" 
He smiled: "Abide in Me." 



— Rossiter Raymond. 



**3n iWemoriam'* 

OH YET we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill. 
To pangs of nature, sins of will 
Defects of doubt and taints of blood; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet. 

That no one fife will be destroyed, 

Or cast as rubbish to the void 
When God hath made the pile complete. 

So runs my dream: but what am I? 

An infant crying in the night, 

An infant crying for the light: 
And with no language but a cry. 

I falter where I firmly trod. 

And falling with my weight of cares, 

Upon the world's great altar-stairs. 
That slope thro' darkness up to God, 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 

And gather chaff and dust and call 

To what I feel is Lord of all. 
And faintly trust the larger hope. 

My own dim life should teach me this. 

That life shall live forevermore. 

Else earth is darkness at the core. 
And dust and ashes all that is. 

I hold it true whate'er befall; 

I feel it when I sorrow most, 

*Tis better to have loved and lost. 
Than never to have loved at all. 

— Alfred Tennyson. 



iWp ^eaben 



/'^AN I forget that yesterday, supernal, 
^^ That thrilled my soul with life at meeting thine? 
Oi" shall I fail to reach that morrow, radiant, eternal. 
When thy sweet love undimmed shall on me shine? 

For tho' the earth is large and heaven is filled with wonder. 
And through life's mysteries deep, we see no helpful gleam, 

I know that tearful ways which lead true hearts asunder. 
Must meet somewhere beyond life's troubled dream. 

And tho' thy path and mine seem strangely severed. 
And tho' my way be long and lonely ere we meet. 

The magic of true love will bring us both together. 
Beyond the gates of pearl — in Heaven, complete. 

So I still trust my heavenly Father's leading, 

And feel that somehow he whose wisdom formed the soul. 

Can take these broken hearts, so sad, bereaved, and bleeding. 
And from life's fragments make one glorious whole. 

And this I know, that should I sadly wander, 

A million ages, missing still my way; 
Somewhere, O soul of mine, in some fair heaven yonder. 

Thy love shall be my heaven again some day. 

Yes, best of all, the old love is unbroken, 

I know thy presence ever at my side. 
Soul answers soul, beyond mere earth born token, 

'Tis heaven now, whatever may betide. 

— C. C. Pierce. 



JPepontJ 

IT SEEMETH such a little way to me. 
Across to that strange country, the beyond; 
And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be 
The home of those of whom I am so fond. 
They make it seem familiar and most dear. 
As journeying friends, bring distant regions near. 

So close it lies that when my sight is clear 
I think I almost see the gleaming strand, 

I know I feel those who have gone from here 
Come near enough sometimes to touch my hand. 

I often think, but for our veiled eyes. 

We should find heaven right about us lies. 

I cannot make it seem a day to dread, 

When from this dear earth I shall journey out 

To that still dearer countrj' of the dead. 

And join the lost ones so long dreamed about. 

I love this world, yet shall I love to go 

And meet the friends who wait for me 1 know. 

I never stand above a bier and see 

The seal of death set on some well-loved face. 
But that I think, "One more to welcome me. 

When I shall cross the intervening space 
Between this land and that one 'over there;' 
One more to make the strange beyond seem fair." 

And so for me there is no sting of death. 
And so the grave hath lost its victory. 

It is but crossing with a bated breath. 

And white, set face — a little strip of sea. 

To find the loved ones waiting on the shore. 

More beautiful, more precious than before. 



14 



tEfjere is; Jgo Beatfi 

THERE is no death. The stars go down 
To rise upon some fairer shore. 
And bright in heaven's jeweled crown 
They shine forevermore. 

There is no death. The dust we tread 
Shall change beneath the summer showers 

To golden grain or mellow fruit. 
Or rainbow-tinted flowers. 

There is no death; the leaves may fall. 
The flowers may fade and pass away — 

They only wait through wintry hours. 
The coming of the May. 

There is no death. An angel form 

Walks o'er the earth with silent tread; 
He bears our best loved ones away. 

And then we call them "dead." 

He leaves our hearts all desolate — 

He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers; 
Transplanted into bliss, they now 

Adorn immortal bowers. 

The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones 

Made glad this scene of sin and strife. 
Sings now an everlasting song. 

Amid the tree of life. 

Born into that undying life. 

They leave us but to come again; 
With joy we welcome them — the same 

Except in sin and pain. 

And ever near us, tho' unseen. 

Their dear immortal spirits tread; 
For all this boundless Universe 

Is Life — there are no dead. 

— /. L. McCreery. 



tCf)e Coming %itt ' 

DEATH turns our thoughts toward immortality. Heaven never seems 
so real to us as when it becomes the abode of some one whom we 
have known and loved. And then when the treasures of our hearts 
are there, we can easily believe that no heart warmed into a glow by 
the fire of brotherly love will ever suffer an eternal chill; that no 
spiritual flame that grows brighter with the years will ever be extin- 
guished, never to shine again. 

Christ gave us proof of immortality, and yet it would hardly 
seem necessary that one should rise from the dead to convince us that 
the grave is not the end. To every created thing God has given a tongue 
that proclaims a resurrection. If the Father designs to touch with a 
divine power the cold and pulseless heart of the buried corn and make 
it burst forth into a new life, will He leave neglected in the earth the 
soul of man, made in the image of the Creator? If he stoops to give 
to the rosebush, whose withered blossoms float upon the autumn breeze, 
the sweet assurance of another springtime, will he refuse the words of 
hope to the sons of men, when the frosts of winter come? If matter, 
mute, inanimate, changed by the force of nature into a multitude of 
forms, can never die, will the spirit of man suffer annihilation when it 
has paid a brief visit like a royal guest to this tenement of clay? No, 
I am as sure that there is another life as I am that I live today. I 
am sure that as the grain of wheat contains within, an invisible germ 
which can discard its body and build a new one from earth and air, 
so this body contains a soul which can clothe itself anew when this 
poor frame crumbles into dust. — William Jennings Br^an. 



a letter 

Dear Friend: 

THE news which this bears to you would be sad were it not for 
the immortal hope and comforts which come to us through faith in 
the living Christ. Our dear and ever beloved mother entered the unseen 
and immortal life yesterday morning. We do not mourn her as one 
overcome by "the last enemy," but as a daughter of the King, upon 
whom has been conferred the supreme decoration for faithful service. 
We do not consider her as dead, but "alive forevermore" and we shall 
not think of her as gone from us, but as being with God more truly 
than ever, and God is here. Her faith in the reality and nearness of 
the heavenly life, grew to her in her last days, to be a certainty, and no 
shadow of doubt ever crossed her heart. Hereafter when the Christmas 
time comes around, we shall not think of it as a sad anniversary; 
but the season of the Savior's birth, will be the time at which she 
attained her greatest victory. 

16 



0nv lobe 

OUR love is not a fading earthly flower: 
Its winged seed dropped down from Paradise, 
And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower. 
Doth momently to fresher beauty rise: 
To us the leafless autumn is not bare 
Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green. 
Our summer hearts make summer's fullness, where 
No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen: 
For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie, 
Love — whose forgetfulness is beauty's death. 
Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I 
Into the infinite freedom openeth, 
And makes the body's dark and narrow grate. 
The wind-flung leaves of Heaven's palace gate. 

— /. R. Lowell. 

laifjen tije iHoming preafess 

LEAD kindly light, amid the encircling gloom. 
Lead thou me on. 
The night is dark and I am far from home, — 

Lead thou me on. 
Keep thou my feet, I do not ask to see 
The distant scene, — one step's enough for me. 

I was not ever thus nor prayed that thou 

Should'st lead me on: 
I loved to choose and see my path, but now 

Lead thou me on. 
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears. 
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years. 

So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still 

Will lead me on; 
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent till 

The night is gone; 
And with the morn those angel faces smile 
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. 

— John Henry Nervman, 
17 



It cannot be that earth is man's only abiding place. It cannot be that 
* our life is a bubble, cast up by the ocean of eternity to float 
for one brief moment upon the surface, and then sink into nothingness 
and darkness forever. Else why is it that the high and glorious aspira- 
tions, which leap like angels from the temples of our hearts, are for- 
ever wandering abroad unsatisfied? Why is it that the rainbow and 
the cloud come over us with a beauty that is not of earth, and then 
pass off and leave us to muse on their faded loveliness? Why is 
it that the stars which hold their festival around the midnight throne 
are set above the grasp of our hmited faculties, and are forever mocking 
us with their unapproachable glory? Finally, why is it that the bright 
forms of human beauty are presented to the view, and then taken from 
us, leaving the thousand streams of affections to flow back in an Alpine 
torrent upon our hearts? 

We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth. There is 
a realm where the rainbow never fades; where the stars will be spread 
out before us like the islands that slumber on the ocean; and where 
the beautiful beings that here pass before us like visions will stay in 
our presence forever. — George D. Prentice. 

I 'HEY ask, many of them, what am I going to do now, that she 
■*■ who was the inspiration of it all, is gone. But she is not gone. 
If in my soul I believed that, I should be desolate indeed. It is only 
that the river separates us once more as when we were children. I 
know as well as I knew then, that she is in the garden just beyond, 
where all her summers are beautiful now, and that she is waiting there 
for me. 

So I shall seek the path to that garden till I find it. I am once 
more where I dreamed as a boy, and I know that I shall wake, as 
I did then, and find the truth unspeakably fairer than my dream. Nor 
do I fear to miss the way, for our Lord himself has charted it, so I 
cannot go wrong. "I am the way," He said. She went trustfully 
across the river with Him, and was not afraid. So why should I be? 
I shall be lonesome, yes ! God alone knows how lonesome. But I 
have the sweet memory of the years we walked together here, and 
what are a few years of loneliness to the eternity of joy ahead, where 
hearts are never wrung in parting? And I shall not be idle. I shall 
be doing what she would have me do, and in it all, as you see, she will 
yel be the inspiration, as she was for all the years that are gone. 

— Jacob A. Riis. 
18 



ijot Cfjangeb, JSwt (glorifieb 

^kJOT changed, but glorified; Oh, beauteous language, 

•*• ^ For those who weep, 

Mourning the loss of some dear face departed. 

Fallen asleep. 
Hushed into silence, never more to comfort 

The hearts of men. 
Gone like the sunshine of another country. 

Beyond our ken. 

Oh, dearest dead, we saw the white soul shining 

Behind the face. 
Bright with tlie beauty and celestial glory 

Of an immortal grace. 
What wonder that we stumble, faint and weeping, 

And sick with fears. 
Since thou hast left us — all alone with sorrow. 

And blind with tears? 

Can it be possible no words shall welcome 

Our coming feet? 
How will it look, the face that v/e have cherished, 

When next we meet? 
Will it be changed, so glorified and saintly. 

That we shall know it not? 
Will there be nothing that will say, *T love thee, 

And have not forgot?" 

Oh, longing heart, the same dear face transfigured 

Shall meet thee there 
Less sad, less wistful in immortal beauty — 

Divinely fair; 
The mortal veil, washed pure with many weepings. 

Is rent away. 
And the great soul that sat within its prison 

Hath found the day. 



19 



In the clear morning of that other country, ' 

In Paradise, 
With the same face that we have loved and cherished. 

She shall arise. 
Let us be patient, we who mourn with weeping 

Some vanished face. 
The Lord hath taken but to add more beauty. 

And a diviner grace. 

Yes, we shall find once more beyond earth's sorrows. 

Beyond these skies. 
In the fair city of the "sure foundation," 

Those heavenly eyes. 
With the same welcome shining through their sweetness. 

That met us here — 
Eyes from whose beauty God hath banished weeping, 

And wiped away the tear. 

Think of us dearest one, while o'er life's waters. 

We seek the land. 
Missing thy voice, thy touch, and the true helping 

Of thy pure hand. 
Till, through the storm and tempest, safely anchored. 

Just on the other side, 
We find thy dear face looking through death's shadows. 

Not changed, but glorified. 



lobe anb Hilt 

^ ^ET hope will dream and faith will trust, 
•*• Since He who knows our need is just. 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 

Alas for him who never sees. 
The stars shine through his cypress trees, 
Who hopelessly lays his dead away. 
Nor looks to see the breaking day, 

Across the mournful marbles play; 
Who ne'er hath learned in hours of faith, 
The truth to sense and flesh unknown. 
That life is ever lord of death. 
And love can never lose its own. 

— /. G. Whittier. 
20 



®[nb|>ms Hobe 



^ I 'HAT love which survives the tomb, is one of the noblest attributes 
■*• of the soul. If it has its woes, it likewise has its comforts; and 
when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of 
recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over 
the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive 
meditation, on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would 
root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw 
a passing cloud over the bright hours of gaiety, or spread a deeper 
sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it even for 
the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? 

No, there is a voice from the tomb, sweeter than song. There 
is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn, even from the charms 
of the living. Oh! the grave! It buries every error, covers every 
defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring 
none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down 
upon even the grave of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb, 
that he should have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies now 
mouldering before him. 

But the grave of those we loved, what a place for tender meditation! 
There it is that we call up in long review, the whole history of virtue 
and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us, almost 
unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell 
upon the tenderness, the solemn awful tenderness of the parting scene; 
the last testimonies of departing love, the thrilling, oh, how thrilling 
pressure of the hand, the faint and faltering accents struggling to give 
one more assurance of affection! The last fond look of the eye, turning 
upon us even from the threshold of existence. Ay, go to the grave 
of thy loved one, and meditate, and there weave thy chaplet of sweet 
flowers and strew these fragrant beauties of nature over the sacred spot. 
It will console thy broken spirit and whisper to thee of a love that 
rises triumphant over the tomb, and which gloriously lives when the 
fleshly heart will beat no more. 

— Washington Irving. 

21 



arije Country of tfje Jgotile 

A BOVE the grandeur of the sunsets 
*^ Which delight this earthly clime 
And the splendors of the dawnings 

Breaking o'er the hills of time. 
Is the richness of the radiance 

Of the land beyond the sun. 
Where the noble ha\e their country 

When the work of life is done. 

Speech cannot describe their heaven. 

Nor hath earth such brightness known. 
For that heaven is the country 

Of the Mighty and his throne; 
Man's brief furlongs cannot bound it. 

Nor his reason comprehend: 
God alone counts all its headlands, 

And like him it hath no end. 

Power almighty flows forever 

Round the wondrous land above. 
In its flood and ebbing constant 

To the everlasting Love; 
Chanting with the matchless cadence 

Of a deep and boundless sea. 
To the continent of heaven. 

Anthems of eternity. 

Welcome to those glories given 

From angelic harps of gold. 
Shall full often be repeated. 

Yet it never shall grow old; 
Music grander than earth's noblest. 

Than all eloquence of words 
And the sweetest of the carols 

Of the gladdest of the birds. 

22 



And those glories shall the problem 

Of this earthly life explain, 
All its bitter turn to sweetness. 

All its losses turn to gain. 
And the rapture of the new life 

Shall exceed the griefs of this; 
And amid those scenes of grandeur 

Even labor shall be bliss. 

His dear name throughout the ages. 

As the aeons circle by. 
To the trend and to the cadence 

Of their own eternity. 
Shall be theme and inspiration 

In the land beyond the sun, 
Where the noble have their country 

When the work of life is done. 



— Aella Greene. 



Come ge ^i^tomolatt 

/'^OME ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish: 
^■^ Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel; 
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; 
Earth has no sorrow, that heaven cannot heal. 

Joy of the comfortless, light of the straying, 

Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure; 
Here speaks the Comforter tenderly saying — 

Earth has no sorrow, that heaven cannot heal. 

Here see the Bread of Life: see waters flowing 

Forth from the throne of God, pure from above. 
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing 
Earth has no sorrow, but heaven can remove. 

— Thomas Moore. 
23 



®eati) antr tfje jFuture 

\V7HAT death will bring to any one is determined by what life 
' ' has been. There are no broken links on the chain of existence. 
"Death is no juggler, to transmute qualities at a touch." Death is 
merely an incident, a transmission, a change of place, not a change of 
selfhood. Death makes no gap in any life. It is the birth-pang into a 
higher existence. All the experiences of the present are carried forward 
into the future; the harvest of character here ripened is there gathered 
in and stored up. Nothing is lost. As life is begun here, it is continued 
there. "To be continued in our next," is written at the close of the 
last chapter of every human life. Out of the darkness of judgment, 
divine solicitude shines forth with ever increasing brightness. Other 
religions represent man as seeking God; the religion of the Bible alone 
represents God as seeking man. So long as the smallest ember of 
spiritual power lies smouldering beneath the ashes of a ruined life, there 
is no abatement of the efforts of God to save that soul. When his efforts 
fail, he mourns with a sorrow of heart which cannot be measured. The 
difference it makes to him, whether the lost remain so or are at last 
reclaimed, none can ever know. Into his joy, when the end of his 
long and loving search has been attained, earth may refuse to enter; but 
as he returns from the wilderness leading the wanderer home the Heavens 
will peal their loudest, 

"And the angels echo around the throne. 
Rejoice, for the Lord brings back his own". 

— Rev. James M. Campbell, D. D. 



Eecognition 

WOULD it be like God to create such beautiful, unselfish loves, 
more like the loves of heaven, than any tj^pe we know, just for 
three score years and ten? Would it be like him to let our souls 
grow together here, so that the separating is the day of pain, and then 
wrench them apart for all eternity? What is meant by such expres- 
sions as "risen together," "sitting together in heavenly places?" If they 
mean anything, they mean recognition, friendship, enjoyment. Our friends 
are not dead nor asleep; they go on living; they are near us always, 
and God has said, "We should know each other there." 

— Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 
24 



®j)e (©ttjer laiorlb 

It lies around us like a cloud, — 
■■• A world we do not see; 
Yet the sweet closing of an eye 
May bring us there to be. 

Its gentle breezes fan our cheek; 

Amid our worldly cares 
Its gentle voices whisper love. 

And mingle with our prayers. 

Sweet hearts around us throb and beat, 
Sweet helping hands are stirred. 

And palpitate the veil between 
With beatings almost heard. 

The silence — awful, sweet, and calm — 

They have no power to break; 
For mortal words are not for them 
To utter or partake. 

So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide, 
So near to press they seem, — 

They softly lull us to our rest. 
And melt into our dream. 

And in the hush of rest they bring 

'Tis easy now to see 
How and how sweet a thing 

The hour of death may be. 

To close the eye, and close the ear. 

Rapt in a trance of bliss. 
To gently dream in loving arms 

And wake to that from this. 

Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep, 
Scarce asking where we are. 

To feel all evil sink away. 
All sorrow and all care. 

25 



Sweet souls around us watch us still. 

Press nearer to our side, 
Into our thoughts, into our prayers, 

With gentle helpings glide. 

Let death between us be as naught, 

A dried and vanished stream; 
Our joy the glad reality. 

This suffering Hfe the dream. 

— Harriet Beecher Storve. 

jFuturitp 

1KNOW not how, nor when nor where — ^ 

Yet I believe that we shall meet 
Beyond that tapestry of air. 

When mortal pulses cease to beat. 

I cannot think that thou wert made 

So wondrously fair to see — 
To bloom a season, then to fade 

And vanish as a dream from me. 

While gazing in deep eyes of thine, 

I deem I read the truth to be 
That thou the image of divine 

Will live through all eternity. 

And I, aware of my unworth, 

Still fondly trust the power of love 
To lift me upward from the earth. 

Until I reach the plane above. 

I know not which of us will go 

To pioneer that distant state. 
But something whispers me: "We know 

The first will for the other wait." 

So now I rest contentedly. 

Regarding neither time nor place. 
As in the end mine eyes shall see 
Mine own beloved face to face. 

— Louis F. Curtis. 
26 



JfuUillment 

THE harmony of man with the world in which he lives, is never 
complete. He is ever vibrating between trembling apprehensions 
and glowing aspirations. His heart throbs constantly with those unsatis- 
fied desires with which God has crowned him, but which are so far, 
so infinitely far from complete realization in any condition of life. Amid 
conscious infirmities, under sentence of death, there is ever a feeling 
after, if haply he may find his home. The race is homesick. It longs 
for a knowledge more satisfying, a voice of welcome more cordial, an 
approval more tranquillizing, and a resting place more permanent, than 
earth can give. 

The only beings on earth whom God has so created as to be 
satisfied with this life are brutes and fools. Man becomes more rest- 
less, the more his wants are supplied. Grant his desires, and you 
multiply them. Deck him with kingly robes and you are not so near 
satisfying him as if he were in tattered rags. Clothe him with righteous- 
ness as with a garment, and you have increased his longings for a 
purer life — a resurrection in the likeness of his Redeemer. 

The life of man has no meaning, if this throbbing nature of his 
ceases to live at physical death. But on the supposition that man is 
at present placed in an unnatural and temporal sphere, and that he 
will attain the end and object of his creation, sometime, somewhere, 
on the supposition that every man will find his place — that all may 
find what they hope or expect — the riddles are explained. Man is no 
longer the "wretch" and the "fool" of creation, which the maxims of 
all nations have otherwise justly declared him to be, but the object of 
God's tender solicitude, the being whose true sphere is in eternity. Is 
not the blunder of man's creation unpardonable, unless there be for 
him a future existence? 

— L. T. Townsend, D. D. 



Peponb 

^^C^ so far," one saith, "so far, 
^^J Lies the shadow-circled shore; 
Who shall tell us where they are. 

Since they come to us no more? 
Farther than the arrow flies. 

Upward sped from swiftest string; 
Farther than the cloud-wreaths rise 

From the mountains where they cling; 
Nor the wing of homing bird 

Bears our greetings to that strand, 
Nor our grief-wrung sighs have stirred 

Aught of answer from that land. 
O, so far, so strange and far 
Out beyond the tideless bar. 
Farther than the storm-cloud lightens. 
Farther than the sunset brightens; 
Not the eagle's loftiest soaring. 
Nor love's uttermost imploring. 
Scales the lowest battlement 
Of the city where they went." 

Nay, but said He so who came 

Thence, and thither went again? 
Now and yesterday the same. 

Son of God, and man of men? 
Going did he close the gate 

Fast behind, an iron bar? 
We who strive and they who wait — 

Are we set apart so far? 
Though the veil of death be dim. 

Shall not love His tryst fulfil? 
He with us, and they with Him, 

Are we not together still? 
Not beyond the sunset height. 

Not beyond the ocean-foam; 
Near, tho' hidden from our sight. 

As hearth-side friends of home; 

28 



Near — as ears that lean to catch 
Steps beyond a hfting latch; 
Veiled — as glad eyes blind with tears 
When a long-wished joy appears. 

O, not far they dwell, not far. 
Near as faith and mercy are; 
Star-sown heights nor depths can part 
Friends who meet in Jesus' heart. 
Ramparts of the sunrise sky. 
Bastions of infinity. 
Are but outworks of the home 
Unto which we two shall come. 
Here the gate is open wide 

There the farthest courts of space 
Center on one altar-side. 

Lighted by one blessed Face. 
We on earth our own above. 
Linked in hope and life and love — 
For the city where they went 
Is the home of heart-content. 

— Mabel Earle. 



**/^^OOD-BY, till morning come again," 

^^-* We part, but not with aught of pain, 

The night is short, and hope is sweet, 

It fills our hearts, and wings our feet; 

And so we sing the glad refrain, 

"Good-by, till morning come again." 

"Good-by, till morning come again," 
The shade of death brings thought of pain, 
But could we know how short the night 
That falls, and hides them from our sight, 
Our hearts would sing the glad refrain, 
"Good-by, till morning come again." 



29 



I DO not think of them as dead 
Who walk with me no more; 
Along the path of life I tread. 
They have but gone before. 

The Father's house is mansioned fair 

Beyond my vision dim; 
All souls are his and here or there 

Are living unto him. 

And still their silent ministry 

Within my heart hath place, 
As when on earth they walked with me 

And met me face to face. 

Their lives are made forever mine; 

What they to me have been 
Hath left henceforth its seal and sign 

Engraven deep within. 

Mine are they by an ownership 

Nor time nor death can free; 
For God hath given love to keep 

Its own eternally. 

— Frederick L. Hosmer. 



3fn tfje J?igf)t 

OUT of the night she came to me. 
Into the dark she went — 
Now no more than a name to me, 
A dear dream that God sent. 

It was a dearer dream to me 
Than any rhyme can tell: 

Her name will ever seem to me 
Sweeter than evening bell. 
30 



She filled life's empty cup to me 
Brimful, a moment's space. 

With soft eyes looking up to me 
To drink to her dear face. 

Out of the dark she came to me, 
Through the night she went away; 

But the night is never the same to me 
She left a hope of day! 



-Odell Shepard. 



tCfje Cfjoir Snbigitile 

OH, may I join the choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence; live 
In pulses stirred to generosity, 
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
For miserable aims that end in self. 
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 
And with their mild persistence, urge men's search 
To vaster issues. So to live is heaven; 
To make undying music in the world. 
Breathing as beauteous order that controls 
With growing sway the growing life of man. 

This is life to come, 
Which martyred men have made more glorious 
For us to strive for. May I reach 
That purest heaven, to be to other souls 
The cup of strength in some great agony. 
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love. 
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty — 
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused. 
And in diffusion ever more intense. 
So shall I join the choir invisible 
Whose music is the gladness of the world. 

— Ceorge Eliot. 



How can I cease to pray for thee? Somewhere 
In God's great universe thou art to-day. 
Can he not reach thee with his tender care? 
Can he not hear me when for thee I pray? 

What matters it to Him who holds within 

The hollow of his hand all worlds, all space. 

That thou art done with earthly pain and sin? 
Somewhere within his ken thou hast a place. 

Somewhere thou livest and hast need of Him; 

Somewhere thy soul sees higher heights to climb. 
And somewhere still there may be valleys dim 

That thou must pass to reach the hills sublime. 

Then all the more because thou canst not hear. 
Poor human words of blessing will I pray. 

O true brave heart; God bless thee, wheresoe'er 
In his great universe thou art to-day. 

— Julia Caroline Dorr. 



^(ug WLltva 

r^AR beyond the sunrise and the sunset rises 
*■ Heaven, with worlds on worlds that lighten and respond: 
Thought can see not thence the goal of hope's surmises 
Far beyond. 

Night and day have made an everlasting bond 

Each with each to hide in yet more deep disguises 
Truth, till souls of men that thirst for truth despond. 

All that man in pride of spirit slights or prizes. 

All the dreams that make him fearful, fain or fond. 

Fade at forethought's touch of life's unknown surprises 
Far beyond. 

— Algernon Charles Smnburne. 



Hiit anb ©eatfj 

T ET us come at once to the fountain head of Christian experience, 
■'— ' our Lord Jesus Christ. Reading his words and his Hfe together, 
and taking our stand at his cross, we learn that suffering is the realization 
of the sublimity of the good — without it, even God would go short 
of that experience. And here the light of Jesus lightens the darkness 
of our perplexity. His goodness was sublime, when seen in the setting 
of physical hmitations, involving the very worst that earthly evil could 
inflict, and culmination in his death. To such goodness as his, death was 
only the emancipation from those hampering conditions, without which 
his divine glory could not have been what it was. Death was his 
home-going, his liberation from the thralldom and restriction, which had 
power to cause him pain; it was the entrance upon his true life, the 
life of eternal freedom and joy. 

So it is with us. Pain and sorrow are God himself breaking the 
fetters which are binding us to the things of time and sense. Death is 
only our call homeward to where we belong. Every seeming disaster 
is but the shattering of a form, to liberate a reality that is too great 
for it. This life does not matter much except as an arena in which to 
manifest a little of the eternal glory which we share with God. There 
is no real reason why we should consider it a calamity that God has 
liberated a spirit from its earthly tenement and taken it home to himself, 
and some day we shall smile to think that we ever thought so. 

—R. /. Campbell 

Smmortalitp 

|\ yiAN is an infinite little copy of God. Little as I am, I feel the 
■*•'•■• God in me, because I can also bring forth from out of my chaos, 
I am rising, I know toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The 
earth gives me its generous sap, but heaven lights me with the reflection 
of unknown worlds. Winter is on my head, and eternal spring is in 
my heart. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around 
me the inunortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is 
marvelous yet simple. It is a fairy tale and it is history. For half 
a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose and verse, history 
philosophy, drama, romance tradition satire, ode and song. I have 
tried all, but feel that I have not said a thousandth part of what is in 
me. When I go down to the grave I can say like many others, I have 
finished my day's work; but I cannot say I have finished my life. 
My days will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind 
alley; it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight to open on the 
dawn. — Victor Hugo. 

33 



/"^ALM as beneath its mother's eyes, 
^^^ In sleep the smiling infant lies. 
So, watched by all the stars at night. 

Yon landscape sleeps in light. 
And while the night breeze dies away. 

Like relics of some faded strain. 
Loved voices, lost for many a day. 

Seem whispering round me once again 
Oh youth! oh love! ye dreams that shed 

Such glory once — where are ye fled? 

Pure ray of light that down the sky. 

Art pointing like an angel's wand. 
As if to guide to realms that lie 

In that bright sea beyond: 
We know that in some brighter deep 

Than e'en that tranquil moonlit main. 
There is a land where those who weep 

Shall wake to smile again. 

— Thomas Moore. 



3 ^fjaU »nolu ®fiee 

flow shall I know thee in the sphere that keeps 
■■• ■■■ The disembodied spirits of the dead. 
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps 
And perishes amidst the dust we tread? 

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain 
If there I meet thy gentle presence not; 

Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again 
In thy beloved eyes the tender thought. 

Will not thine own true heart demand me there? 

That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given; 
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer. 

And wilt thou never utter it in heaven? 



In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind. 
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere. 

And larger movements of the unfettered mind, 
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here? 

Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky. 
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name, 

The same fair, thoughtful brow, and gentle eye. 
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same? 

Shalt thou not teach me in that calmer home 
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this — 

The wisdom which is love — till I become 
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss? 

— William Cullen Bryant. 



Jf arfter ®n 

I HEAR it singing, sweetly singing. 
Singing in an undertone. 
Singing as if God had taught it — 
"It is better farther on." 

Night and day it sings the sonnet. 

Sings it while it sits alone; 
Sings so that the heart may hear it, 

"It is better farther on." 

Sits upon the grave and sings it; 

Sings it while the heart would groan. 
Sings it when the shadows darken — 

"It is better farther on." 

Farther on? Ah, how much farther? 

Count the milestones one by one; 
No; no counting, only trusting — 

It is better farther on. 

35 



tCfje 3nf inite 



Into the eternal shadows 
•*■ That gird thy life around. 
Into the infinite silence 

Wherewith Death's shore is bound. 
Thou art gone forth beloved; 

And I were mean to weep. 
That thou hast left life's shallows. 

And dost possess the Deep. 

Thou liest low and silent. 

Thy heart is cold and still. 
Thine eyes are shut forever. 

And death has had his will; 
He loved and would have taken, 

I loved and would have kept, 
We strove — and he was stronger, 

And I have never wept. 

Death may possess thy body. 

Thy soul is still with me. 
More sunny and more gladsome 

Than it was wont to be: 
Thy body was a fetter 

That bound me to the flesh 
Thank God that it is broken, 

And now I live afresh. 

Now I can see thee clearly. 

The dusky cloud of clay, 
That hid thy starry spirit. 

Is rent and blown away: 
To earth I give thy body. 

Thy spirit to the sky, 
I saw its bright wings growing, 

And knew that it must fly. 

36 



Now I can love thee truly. 

For nothing comes between 
The senses and thy spirit, 

The seen and the unseen; 
Lift the eternal shadows. 

The silence bursts apart. 
And the soul's boundless future 

Is present in my heart. 



WJ 



emancipation 

7HY be afraid of death. 
As though your life were breath? 
Death but annoints your eyes 

With clay. O glad surprise. 
Why should you be forlorn? 

Death only husks the corn. 
Why should you fear to meet 

The thresher of the wheat? 
Is sleep a thing to dread? 

Yet sleeping you are dead 
Till you awake and rise 

Here, or beyond the skies. 
Why should it be a wrench 

To leave your wooden bench. 
Why not with happy shout, 

Run home when school is out? 
TTie dear ones left behind. 

O foolish one and blind. 
A day — and you will meet, — 

A night — and you will greet. 
This is the death of Death, 

To breathe away the breath 
And know the end of strife 

And taste the deathless life 
And joy without a fear. 

And smile without a tear. 
And work with heaven's rest, 

And find the last the best. 
'''^"^&JI?Jd%Sons A/a/f&fe Babcock. 

37 



Sometime 

SOMETIME, when all life's lessons have been learned. 
And sun and moon forevermore have set, 
The things which our weak judgment here have spurned. 

The things o'er which we have grieved with lashes wet, 
Will flash before us out of life's dark night. 

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue 
And we shall see how all God's plans were right. 
And how what seemed reproof was love most true. 

And if sometimes commingled with life's wine, 

We find the wormwood and rebel and shrink. 
Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine 

Pours out this portion for our lips to drink: 
And if some friend we love is lying low. 

Where human kisses cannot reach his face, 
O do not blame your loving Father so. 

But wear your crown of sorrow with obedient grace. 

And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath. 

Is not the sweetest gift God sends his friend. 
And that sometimes the sable pall of death 

Conceals the fairest boon his love can send. 
If we could push ajar the gates of life. 

And stand within and all God's workings see 
We could interpret all this doubt and strife. 

And for each mystery could find a key. 

But not to-day. Then be content poor heart; 

God's plans like lillies pure and white unfold. 
We must not tear the close shut leaves apart; 

Time will reveal the calyxes of gold; 
And if through patient toil we reach the land 

Where tired feet with sandals loose may rest. 
When we shall clearly know and understand, 

I feel that we shall say, "God knew the best." 

38 



0\}tv t^t J^iber STfjep pecfeon 

OVER the river they beckon to me. 
Loved ones who've crossed to the other side. 
The gleam of their snowy robes I see. 

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. 
There's one with ringlets of sunny gold. 

And eyes with the reflection of heaven's blue. 
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold, 

And the pale mists hid him from mortal view; 
We saw not the angels who met him there. 

The gates of the city we could not see; 
Over the river, over the river. 

My brother stands waiting to welcome me. 

Over the river, the boatman pale 

Carried another, the household pet; 
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale. 

Precious darling, I see her yet. 
She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands, 

And fearlessly entered the phantom bark, 
We felt it glide from the silver sands, 

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark; 
We know she is safe on the further side. 

Where all the ransomed and angels be; 
Over the river, the mystic river. 

My childhood's idol is waiting for me. 

And I sit and think when the sunset's gold 

Is flushing river and hill and shore, 
I shall one day stand by the water cold 

And list for the sound of the boatman's oar; 
And watch for a gleam of the flapping sail, 

I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand, 
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale, 

To the better shore of the spirit land. 
I shall know the loved who have gone before. 

And joyfully sweet shall the meeting be. 
When over the river, the peaceful river. 

The Angel of Life shall carry me. 

—Nanc]) A. W. Priest. 
39 



Sometime OTe^U ©nbergtanb 

NOT now, but in the coming years, when we shall reach the better 
land. 
We'll read the meaning of our tears, and there, sometime, we'll under- 
stand. 

We'll catch the broken threads again, and finish what we here began, 
Heaven will the mystery explain, and then, ah, then we'll understand. 

We'll know why clouds instead of sun, were over many a cherished plan. 
Why songs have ceased when scarce begun, for there, sometime, we'll 
understand. 

Why what we long for most of all, eludes so oft our eager hand. 
Why hopes are crushed and castles fall, up there, sometime, we'll under- 
stand. 

God knows the way. He holds the key. He guides us with unerring hand. 
Sometime with tearless eyes we'll see, yes, there, up there, we'll under- 
stand. 

Then trust in God, thro' all thy days; fear not for He doth hold thy 

hand, 
Tho' dark the night, still sing and praise, sometime, sometime, we'll 

understand. 

— MaxTi>ell N. Cornelius. 



SSit^iqnation 

"T* HERE is no flock, however watched and tended, 
■•• But one dead lamb is there. 
There is no fireside howsoe'er defended, 
But has one vacant chair. 

The air is full of farewells to the dying; 

And mournings for the dead; 
The heart of Rachel for her children crying. 

Will not be comforted. 

Let us be patient. These severe afflictions 

Not from the ground arise. 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 

Assume this dark disguise. 

40 



We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; 

Amid these earthly damps, 
What seem to us but sad funeral tapers 

May be heaven's distant lamps. 

There is no death. What seems so is transition; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 

Whose portals we call death. 

And tho' at times impetuous with emotion 

And anguish long suppressed, 
The swelling heart heaves moaning Hke the ocean. 

That cannot be at rest, — 

We will be patient and assuage the feeling 

We may not wholly stay; 
By silence sanctifying, not concealing. 

The grief that must have way. 

— H. W. Longfellow 

Wc^t Jlountaing of %iit 

I ^HERE'S a land far away, 'mid the stars we are told, 
•*■ Where they know not the sorrow of time, — 
Where the pure waters wander through valleys of gold, 

And life is a treasure sublime; — 
'Tis the land of our God, 'tis the home of the soul. 
Where the ages of splendor eternally roll; 
Where the way weary traveler reaches his goal. 
On the evergreen Mountains of Life. 

Our gaze cannot soar to that beautiful land, 

But our visions have told of its bliss, — 
And our soul by the gale of its gardens are fanned. 

When we faint in the gardens of this; 
And we sometimes have longed for its holy repose. 
When our spirits were torn with temptations and woes. 
And we've drank from the tide of the river that flows. 
From the evergreen Mountains of Life. 

41 



Oh, the stars never tread the blue heavens at night. 

But we think vv^here the ransomed have trod, 
And the day never smiles from his palace of light, 

But we feel the bright smile of our God. 
We are traveling homeward through changes and gloom. 
To a kingdom where pleasures unceasingly bloom. 
And our guide is the glory that shines through the tomb. 
From the evergreen Mountains of God. 

— /. G. Clark. 



I HERE is an hour of peaceful rest, 

■*■ To mourning wanderers given; 
There is a joy for souls distrest, 
A balm for every wounded breast, 
'Tis found above, in heaven. 

There is a soft, a downy bed, 

'Tis fair as breath of even; 
A couch for weary mortals spread, 
Where they may rest the aching head. 

And find repose — in heaven. 

There is a home for weary souls 

By sin and sorrow driven; 
When tossed on life's tempestuous shoals. 
When storms arise and ocean rolls, 

And all is drear but heaven. 

There, Faith lifts up her cheerful eye. 

To brighten prospects given; 
And views the tempest passing by. 
The evening shadows quickly fly, 

And all serene in heaven. 

There fragrant flowers, immortal bloom. 

And joy's supreme are given; 
There rays divine disperse the gloom: 
Beyond the confines of the tomb 

Appears the dawn of heaven. 

— William Bingham Tappan. 

Al 



PT* VERY event agreeable to the course of nature ought to be looked 
*— * on as a real good; and surely none can be more natural than for 
an old man to die. The disunion of the soul and the body is effected 
in the young by dint of violence, but is wrought out in the old by a 
mere fullness of the completion of years. The ripeness of death I 
perceive in myself with much satisfaction; and I look forward to my 
approaching dissolution as to the entrance into a secure haven, where 
I may at length find a happy repose from the fatigues of a long voyage. 

The nearer death advances toward me, the more clearly I seem 
to discern its real nature. The soul, during her confinement within 
this prison of the body, is doomed by fate to undergo a severe penance; 
for her native seat is in heaven; and it is with reluctance that she is 
forced down from those celestial mansions into these lower regions, 
where all is foreign and repugnant to her nature. 

This opinion I am induced to embrace, not only as agreeable to 
the best deductions of reason, but in just deference also to the most 
noble and distinguished philosophers. When I consider the faculty with 
which the human mind is endued, its amazing celerity, its wonderful 
power in recollecting past events, and its sagacity in determining the 
future, together with its numberless discoveries in the arts and sciences, 
I feel a conscious conviction that this active comprehensive principle 
cannot possibly be of a mortal nature. 

For my own part, I feel myself transported with the most ardent 
impatience to join the society of my departed friends, whose characters 
I greatly respected and whose persons I sincerely loved. Nor is this 
earnest wish confined to those excellent persons alone v^ath whom I was 
formerly connected: I ardently wish to visit those celebrated worthies 
of whose honorable conduct I have heard and read much. To this 
glorious assembly I am speedily advancing; and I would not now be 
turned back in my journey, even on the assured condition that my youth, 
like that of Pelias, should again be restored. In short, I consider this 
world as a place which Nature never designed for my permanent abode; 
and I look upon my departure from it, not as being driven from my 
habitation, but as leaving my inn. — Cicero. 

43 



(guibance 

I LONG for household voices gone, 
*• For vanished smiles I long. 
But God hath led my dear ones on, 
And he can do no wrong. 

I know not what the future hath 

Of marvel or surprise. 
Assured alone that life and death, 

His mercy underlies. 

I dimly guess from blessings known 

Of greater out of sight, 
And with the chastened Psalmist own 

His judgments too are right. 

And so beside the silent sea, 

I wait with muffled oar; 
No harm from him can come to me, 

On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where His islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air, 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care. 

— /• G. Whittier. 

3 ^Ijatt ht ^atisstieb 

I 'HERE is a land where every pulse is thrilling 
^ With raptures earth's sojourners may not know, 
Where heaven's repose the weary heart is stilling. 
And peacefully life's time-tossed currents flow. 

Far out of sight, while yet the flesh enfolds us. 

Lies the fair city where our hearts abide. 
And of its bhss is naught more wondrous told us 

Than these few words, — "I shall be satisfied." 

O blessed thought, to know the spirit's yearning 
For sweet companionship with kindred minds — 

The silent love that here meets no returning — 
The inspiration which no language finds. 



Shall there be satisfied the soul's vague longing — 
The aching void which nothing earthly fills: 

Oh, what desires upon my soul are thronging. 
As I look upward to the heavenly hills! 

Thither my weak and weary steps are tending — 
Savior and Lord, with thy frail child abide! 

Guide me toward home, where all my wanderings ending, 
I shall see thee, and there "be satisfied." 

PEAR death? — to feel the fog in my throat. 

*■ The mist in my face, 

When the snows begin and the blasts denote, 

I am nearing the place. 
The power of the night, the press of the storm. 

The post of the foe; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 

Yet the strong man must go; 
For the journey is done and the summit attain'd. 

And the barriers fall. 
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained. 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more. 

The best and the last! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forebore. 

And bade me creep past. 
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare hke my peers. 

The heroes of old; 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave. 

The black minute's at end. 
And the elements rage, the field voices that rave 

Shall dwindle, shall blend. 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain. 

Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again. 

And with God be the rest! — Robert Broivning. 

45 



JMotfjer 

MOTHER left us at sunset yesterday — crossing the great divide. 
With a fortitude that has graced none more fair, she took her 
leave of life without a fear. Through weeks of silent suffering she 
looked calmly into the future, and did not falter; with a heroism born 
of her supreme faith in Jesus of Nazareth she approached the end, 
trilling with her latest breath the high note of exultation — as one who 
knocks at the gate of eternal morning. 

Each returning springtime, when the lilacs and the snowball hold 
their carnival, will recall to us the passing of the sweetest, noblest 
character we have known. Shrouded in her robes immaculate, asleep 
beneath a wilderness of Howers, that fain would have kissed her eye- 
lids to awakening, we sent the precious earthly casket back to the old 
eastern home. There, beneath the whispering pines, within sound of 
the babbling stream which for more than forty years was to her the 
sweetest music of earth, 

"We paused and breathed a prayer above the sod. 
And left her to her rest and God." 

With her ear attuned to the music of the infinite she caught up 
the celestial strain, and the harmonies of a noble life, set vibrating by 
her on earth, were blended triumphantly with the eternal anthems of 
the heavenly home. — Luther C. Bailey. 



Wi}t Contemplation ot Smmortalitp 

BRETHREN, I beseech you, treasure the thought of endless life 
more than you do. I know not how it is, but it seems to me 
that the Christianity of this day is largely losing the habitual contempla- 
tion of immortality which gave so much of its strength to the religion 
of past generations. We are all so busy in setting forth and enforcing 
the blessings of Christianity in its effects in the present life, that I fear 
me we are largely forgetting what it does for us at the end and beyond 
the end. And I would that we all thought more of the exodus from 
this life and of our entrance into that life, in the light of Christ's death 
and resurrection. Such contemplation will not unfit us for any duty or 
any enjoyment. It will lift us above the absorbed occupation with 
present triviaHties, which is the bane of all tliat is good and noble. It 
will teach us a solemn scorn of ills. It will set on the furthest horizon 
a great light instead of a doleful darkness, and it will deliver us from 
the dread of that "shadow feared of man," but not of those wno, 
listening to Jesus Christ, have been taught that to depart is to be 
with Him. — Alexander McLaren. 



Calmlp 

CALMLY, calmly, lay him down! 
He has won a noble fight; 
He has battled for the right; 
He has won a fadeless crown. 

Mem'ries all too bright for tears. 
Crowd around us from the past; 
He was faithful to the last — 

Faithful through long toilsome years. 

All that makes for human good. 
Freedom, righteousness and truth. 
These the objects of his youth. 

Unto age he still pursued. 

Kind and gentle was his soul. 
Yet it had a glorious might; 
Clouded minds it filled with light. 

Wounded spirits it made whole. 

Hoping, trusting, lay him down! 
Many in the realms above 
Look for him with eyes of love. 

Wreathing him immortal crown. 



/^ OD'S ways are not our ways, and dim and dark 
^^ Sometimes they seem, and sorrow-filled. 

As if all joy had died, and Grief distilled 

Her tears in liquid fire. Then, then, O hark! 

God speaks! Be not afraid, my child. 

Though tempests rave and storms break wild; 

For I am near, behind the sullen dark, 

My hand upon the helm, I guide thy bark. 

— Eliza A. Otis. 

47 



\Y7ITH silence only as their benediction, 

' ' God's angels come 

Where in the shadow of a great affliction. 
The soul sits dumb. 

Yet would I say what thine own heart approveth; 

Our Father's will. 
Calling to him the dear one whom he loveth, 

Is mercy still. 

Not upon thee or thine the solenm angel 

Hath evil wrought; 
The funeral anthem is a glad evangel, — 

The good die not. 

God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly, 

What he hath given; 
They live on earth, in thought and deed as truly 

As we in heaven. 
Mm.t:.. —J- G. Whiitier. 



DEYOND these chilling winds and gloomy skies, 
*-' Beneath death's cloudy portal. 
There is a land where beauty never dies. 
Where love becomes immortal. 

A land whose life is never dimmed by shade. 

Whose fields are ever vernal; 
Where nothing beautiful can ever fade 

But blooms for aye eternal. 

The city's shining towers we may not see 

With our dim earthly vision. 
For Death, the silent warder keeps the key 

That opes the gates elysian. 

But sometimes when adown the western sky, 

A fiery sunset lingers. 
Its golden gates swing inward noiselessly 

Unlocked by unseen fingers. 
48 



And while they stand a moment half ajar, 

Gleams from the inner glory 
Stream brightly through the azure vault afar. 

And half reveal the story. 

O land unknown ! O land divine ! 

Father all-wise eternal, 
Oh, guide these wandering wayworn feet of mine 

Into those pastures vernal. 

— Nanc}) W. Priest. 



Crosfsiing tfje par 

O UNSET and evening star. 
And one clear call for me. 
And may there be no moaning of the bar 
When I put out to sea. 



But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 

Too full for sound or foam. 
When that which drew from out the mighty deep 
Turns again home. 

Twihght and evening bell. 

And after that the dark. 
And may there be no sadness of farewell. 

When I embark. 

For though from out our bourne of time and place 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to meet my pilot face to face. 

When I have crossed the bar. 



-Tenn\}son. 



jFrom tfje pible 

* I ^HE Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 

■■■ He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside 
the still waters. 

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness 
for his name's sake. 

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I 
will fear no evil: for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff they com- 
fort me. 

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; 
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my 
life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. 



FOR this corruptible must put on incorruption. 
And this mortal must put on immortality. 
But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption. 

And this mortal shall have put on immortality. 
Then shall come to pass the saying that is written. 
Death is swallowed up in victory. 
O death where is thy victory? 
O death where is thy sting? 1. Cor. 15:53-55. 

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; 

Neither shall the sun strike them nor any heat: 

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd. 

And shall guide them unto the fountains of waters of life. 

And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. Rev. 7:16-17. 

Let not your hearts be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in 
me. In. my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would 
have told you; I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and 
prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you unto 
myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:1-3. 

I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter, 
that he may abide with you forever. I will not leave you comfortless: 
I will come to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto 
you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be 
troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:16,27. 

50 



I am the resurrection and the life: 

He that believeth in me though he were dead 

Yet shall he live again. 

And whosoever liveth and believeth in me 

Shall never die. John 1 1 :25. 26. 

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren. 

Concerning them which are asleep. 
That ye sorrow not even as others 

Which have no hope. 
For, if we believe that Jesus died 

And rose again, even so 
Them also which sleep in Jesus 

Will God bring with him. 

1. Thess. 5:13. 14. 

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, 
it is raised in incorruption : It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory: 
It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural 
body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there h 
a spiritual body. And as we have borne the image of the earthy we 
shall also bear the image of the heavenly. For this corruptible must pr.t on 
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this 
corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put 
on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 
"Death is swallowed up in victory." 

1. Corinthians, 16. 



Cfje Hanh of eternal Me 

A ND he showed me a pure river of water of life, 
^~^ Clear as crystal, 
Proceeding out of the throne of God, 
And of the Lamb. 

And in the midst of the street of it 

And on either side of the river 
Was there the tree of life, 

Bearing twelve manner of fruits. 
And the leaves of the tree 

Were for the healing of the nations. 

And there shall be no more curse. 

But the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, 
And his servants shall serve him. 

And they shall see his face, and his name 

Shall be in their foreheads. 

And there shall be no night there. 

And they need no candle, neither light of the sun, 
For the Lord God giveth them light. 

And they shall reign forever and ever. 

Blessed are they that do his commandments, 
That they may have right to the tree of life. 
And may enter in through the gates 
Into the city. 

Revelation, 22. 



draper 

ALMIGHTY God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart 
hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after 
they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity; 
we give thee hearty thanks for the good examples of all those thy 
servants, who, having finished their course in faith, do now rest from 
their labors. And we beseech thee that we, with all those who have 
departed in the true faith of thy holy name, may have our perfect con- 
summation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy eternal and everlast- 
ing glory, and furthermore, we pray that in the general resurrection in 
the last day, we may be found acceptable in thy sight; and receive that 
blessing, which thy well-beloved Son shall then pronounce to all those 
who love and fear thee, saying, "Come ye blessed of my Father, 
receive ye the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the 
world." Grant this we beseech thee, O merciful Father, through Jesus 
Christ our Mediator and Redeemer. Amen. 

— From the Book of "Common Prater." 

O Thou Prince of Life and First-Begotten of the dead, who by 
thy glorious resurrection, hath overcome death and opened unto us the 
gates of everlasting life ; enable us by thy heavenly grace to walk in 
newness of life, and to abound in the fruits of righteousness, so that we 
may at last triumph over death and the grave, and rise in Thy likeness, 
having our vile bodies changed into the fashion of Thine own glorious 
body, who are God over all, blessed forever. Amen. 

— George Dana Boardman. 



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